How To Get Rid Of Ants In Driveway Cracks For Good

The first time you realise you have a problem with ants is when you discover a trail of them running across your kitchen floor. All of a sudden they make themselves known by emerging from the tiniest of holes or gaps, and ferreting out any food source inside your home.

Most ant infestations don’t originate inside your home – they come from outside, and very often, they like to live in the cracks in your pavement or driveway.

Getting rid of ants in your driveway cracks can be tricky and despite a few fast fixes being available, there is only one true long term solution – to eliminate cracks for good. Here’s how to achieve it…

Why Do Ants Like Driveway Cracks?

Ants love soils that are soft, dry, and well aerated, and that is what we most often have under typical concrete driveways, or those with paving slabs. Ants also appreciate the warmth that passes through the concrete, and deep down into the earth.

For so-called flying ants, this warmth can trigger their emergence – creating an even larger challenge to contend with.

The cracks in typical driveway types make the perfect escape holes for the colony to search for food. In some cases, large colonies of ants will even break away from the original nest and look for a new area to form a new one.

Before too long, all of the cracks in your driveway can be swarming with ants, all looking for sources of food (very often inside your home).

In each colony, you can expect there to be as many as 5,000 ants, and in some cases, it could be up to 30,000 if there is more than one queen. This means that the search for food will almost certainly move beyond the immediate area, and the ants will make their way into your home.

Ants are often known as sugar ants, because this is their favourite food. In fact, they will eat any food that is left out, including: crumbs, food spillages, pet food and even dead rodents and insects

Why Ants Welcome Themselves Into Your Home

You might think that if ants love living under your driveway so much, they might want to stay there (and for the most part we would be OK with that), but it is when they enter our home that we decide the time has come to eliminate them for good.

But why do they enter our homes in the first place, and decide to stay for some time?

One word – food. Ants are often known as sugar ants, because this is their favourite food. In fact, they will eat any food that is left out, including: crumbs, food spillages, pet food and even dead rodents and insects.

It is the worker ants that collect this food, and takes it back to the Queens, the infants, and the reproductive ants. It is the reproductive ants that grow wings, and emerge in the right weather conditions to mate with Queens, who then continue the colony’s life cycle elsewhere.

Providing enough food for all of this to occur is vital to the survival of the colony and the species.

Of course you can do all kinds of things to prevent ants getting inside your home, including sealing all tiny gaps and putting down trails of insecticide or even simple table salt. But somehow, these ants get in, and you know that the best solution is to get rid of ants at the source.

Ants hate salt, and it will kill them if they come into contact with it, because it dehydrates them to such an extent that they drink so much water it causes them to literally explode… If you can’t find the colony, a trail of salt along the existing cracks in your driveway can prevent them from exiting there

How To Get Rid Of Driveway Ants For Good

The best and main way to remove ants that are living under your driveway is to try and identify where the colony is.

This can be tricky, as the ants will often travel long distances under the concrete slabs before they emerge through a crack.

Aside from lifting the paving slabs or destroying your driveway, you really only have a few options.

We have listed the safe and effective methods of killing ants that won’t hurt other insects or animals and which you are likely to have available inside your home already.

Fast Fix No.1: Use Boiling Water:

If you can see the colony, simply open the top of it ,and pour in boiling water. This will kill all of the insects, including the Queen.

You may need to repeat this a few times on different days to get all of the ants.

Fast Fix No.2: Shake On Some Salt!:

Ants hate salt, and it will kill them if they come into contact with it, because it dehydrates them to such an extent that they drink so much water it causes them to literally explode… If you can’t find the colony, a trail of salt along the existing cracks in your driveway can prevent them from exiting there.

They will still live underneath , and will probably exit elsewhere. You can do the same with other household cooking items, such as: cinnamon, pepper, chilli powder or curry powder.

Fast Fix No.3: Cover The Area With Coffee:

Ants go a bit strange when exposed to caffeine. They lose their bearings, and find it impossible to make their way back to the nest-rather like us humans after one too many glasses of Wine!

If the first source of food the ants come across is coffee, they won’t return to the nest with food, and the colony will eventually die of starvation.

Once the ground has been cleared, and the surrounding area levelled off, a layer of sharp sand can be used to ensure free drainage. On to this, a concrete or tarmac slab is laid. It is very important that this layer is crack free – both for protection from future ant colonies, but also to ensure the top layer does not crack

Resin Bound Surfacing: A Cracking Solution To Cracks!

If you really want to avoid the annual ritual of trying to control the ants that are living under your driveway, you need to lay a driveway material that will remain consistently crack-free.

A resin bound driveway is the perfect solution, and will improve the way that your driveway looks, and ensure that those pesky ants will take up residence elsewhere, far from the comfort of your home!

A resin bound driveway is created by removing your current driveway (including the cracks and the ants living beneath), and digging down a further few centimetres.

This earth should now be free of any colonies that have been built. At this point, you can check the ground for telltale holes or mounds, and use the boiling water trick to ensure the colonies are well and truly dead and gone.

Once the ground has been cleared, and the surrounding area levelled off, a layer of sharp sand can be used to ensure free drainage. On to this, a concrete or tarmac slab is laid. It is very important that this layer is crack free – both for protection from future ant colonies, but also to ensure the top layer does not crack.

Once again, these sub-bases should be free draining, to ensure it meets planning permission rules.

Over the base, a mix of resin and aggregate is pressed into the shape of the driveway you want, to a depth of around 15mm. This allows for it to be a hard wearing surface, and one that will withstand the weight of cars and other vehicles.

It is very important that the resin mixture is laid in one continues slab and that each section is overlaid and melds perfectly with the last. Using a professional contractor who knows what they are doing will ensure you get the crack free surface that you want.

If you follow these ant-busting tricks, you can avoid the recurrence of your ant problem next Summer. Of course, there are no guarantees that they won’t show up under other parts of your paths or patio – but resin bound solutions work very well in these areas too.

Improve the value of your home-and avoid the march of ants into your home today, with the help of resin bound surfacing. Simply call 0800 1700 636, or click the button below to request your free site survey today!